Root Shoot Homebrewers - Meet Mark Boelman

National Homebrew Day is May 7th, and while we often spend time touting the breweries and distilleries that work with us, we want to take a minute to recognize another group that holds a soft spot in our hearts…the folks that go the extra mile to brew their own beer with our local Root Shoot malt!

A dedicated group of beer aficionados that concoct tasty brews out of their garages, on their back patios, or wherever they can make space, Root Shoot’s homebrewers are an enthusiastic bunch who have been key in helping us get our name out in the community. We’re indebted to them for their loyalty and their hard work on behalf of Root Shoot, so over the next couple of months, we’ll be featuring a few of them on our socials!

This week, we wanted to start with a Homebrew Powerhouse, Mark Boelman.

Mark was one of our picks for a Homebrew Highlight, not just because he is an excellent homebrewer (this guy took home a GABF medal!) but because of his involvement in the homebrew community - he’s an active member of Weiz Guys Homebrew Club - and his efforts to guide the Weiz Guys (and others!) in philanthropic activities for the wider Northern Colorado community. Mark has organized turkey drives for the Larimer County Food Bank, coat drives for the bitter cold months, and, most recently, he and the Weiz Guys joined the call by Pravda Beer Theatre, a brewery in Ukraine that, after the Russian invasion, released five of their recipes and encouraged brewers world wide to use those recipes to brew beer and raise funds for humanitarian efforts. Weiz Guys will be matching all donations by its members made to the Red Cross. As mastermind behind the fundraiser, Mark will be brewing Ukrainian Golden Ale using Root Shoot Odysessy Pilsner Malt and RS Wheat and tapping it on National Homebrew Day, May 7th.

We wanted to give a shout out to the good dude behind all these good causes, so please meet…

Mark Boelman, Weiz Guys Homebrew Club

Number of Years Brewing: 12

Favorite Style of Beer for Drinking: I’m a fairly seasonal drinker - big barrel-aged stout and barleywine in the colder months and light and refreshing in the summer. I don't like to discriminate!

How did you first get into homebrewing? Since venturing out on my own at 19, and missing my mother's cooking I learned to enjoy being in the kitchen - I was interested in making recipes to enjoy and share with friends. When craft beer exploded in Colorado, I was blown away at the flavor that beer could have. Combine those two life experiences with a chance to learn from a neighbor, I was hooked....especially when that first beer I made was good!

What do you most love about homebrewing? I love being able to share my beer with friends and family - I love the process from idea to recipe formulation to brew day to the anticipation of the carbonated beer flowing out of my taps - I love the community of homebrewing and the craft beer community - I love opening up a tap and pouring a pint of a beer that has been lagering for months and enjoying that crisp taste on a hot day and the satisfaction of knowing I made it.

What do you believe to be the trickiest part about homebrewing?

I think the trickiest part is paying attention to all the intangibles. You can watch out for the big stuff like sanitation and temperature control but I really think it is a culmination of giving time and attention to all the small things, that as a whole, make a big difference.

What is the best beer that you brew? Right now, I feel like the NE IPA's I am making are amazing. I love buying these in the market but at $20 a 4pk to be able to have better beer on tap at the house is kick-ass. Sometimes I pour a pint and step back and think, "Holy shit, I made that (in my garage!) I got some validation of this last summer by winning the Boil Rumble, a competition hosted by Melvin Brewing, a brewery known for hop-forward beer. Our club got to travel to Alpine Wyoming and brew my NE IPA at their location....using Root Shoot Malt!

What’s a memorable homebrew experience (good or bad) that you have had? The coolest experience I have ever had was winning a GABF medal as a homebrewer. Odell Brewing in Fort Collins picked up a beer I had entered at the Liquid Poets competition. A dark raspberry sour. Being able to get on stage and accept that award, is something I will never forget. It was super cool too, as I was volunteering with the American Homebrewers Association at the pro-am booth, I was able to serve my beer to attendees after I had won.

What’s next for you in brewing? What are your goals?

I am currently getting my lineup ready for the National Homebrew Competition. In 2018, I was runner-up for the Ninkasi Award (Homebrewer of the Year) - to be so close and not win! I have sights set on pulling that off although I know, the competition is fierce and takes a ton of luck.

And the last very important question: if you had to pick one (non-homebrew) beer that would be the only beer you would be allowed to drink for the next 10 years, what would it be?
Hmmm, I love this question. If I had only one beer to drink for ten years - I would probably go with Trumer Pils: It is exceptionally well-crafted and is actually the only beer the brewery makes and it shows!

Brewery of the Month: Launch Pad Brewery

Planes, Trains, and Chardonnay.

A description of our upcoming vacation to the wine region of France?

Mais, non! You know we’re not wine people. Plus, farmers don’t get summer vacations.

An Imperial Blond Ale made with Chardonnay grape juice and orange blossom honey now on tap at one of our growing Aurora breweries?

Now, that’s more our speed - even if we can’t (yet) get there by plane or train. We have to do the old-fashioned driving thing from NoCo to Aurora. Once we arrive, however, we belly up to the bar, order an Imperial Blonde, (or one of the other 30+ beers on tap) and…blast into outer space.

Launch Pad Brewery located on South Buckley Road in the largest of the Denver suburbs, is a space-themed brewery founded by a group of friends, flying nerds, and Air Force veterans. 

Launched (ha! get it?) in 2015 by best buds David Levesque and Henry Rusch, and later joined by Paul Mahoney, Launch Pad Brewery serves up a huge taplist in an open taproom with a view of the brewhouse behind it. Everything is space-themed: there are glowing star on the ceiling, a Cape Canaveral mural behind the bar, and framed rocket specs on the walls. The brewery’s theme ties with the area’s connections to the space and air industry and the clientele regularly shows up in NASA to imbibe their craft beer rocket fuel.

That is, actually, the brewery’s motto: Craft Beer is Our Rocket Fuel and it’s a renewable resource we can fully get behind. Out of fuel? Grab another beer! Out of beer? We’ll send  another batch of malt! Out of malt? We’ll plant another field of barley, and then come have a beer while we wait for it to grow!

Even if we did drink Launch Pad beer during an entire growing season, however, we still don’t know if we could work through everything they have to offer. They always keep a spectacular number of beers on their taplist (current count 33!) ranging from Wild Ales, to Barleywines, to Double IPAs. There’s even a hard seltzer throw in the mix.

Launch Pad caters to a dedicated crowd of locals and it seems the commitment to their customers and their craft rocket fuel is paying off. They are in the process of expanding into the space next door to their current location and upgrading to a 20 bbl system. One might say they are really blasting off…

So, if you’re planning a trip to the cosmic reaches of the craft beer universe (or, really, if you’re just headed to Aurora) here are a few tips for the journey:

1. Wear your NASA t-shirt. In the absence of NASA gear, any Air Force schwag certainly will do.

2. Read the entire beer menu and the clever names just for fun, then order a drink based purely on the name. Sort of like ordering a wine based purely on the label but much better because a) it’s beer, not wine and b) it’s craft. Our personal favorite buy-by-the-name-beer? Enter Spaceballs Joke Here - a low ABV Schwarzbier.

3. Follow it up with a Root Shoot-specific beer. Co-owner Paul Mahoney recommends Chaotic Orbit, a traditional American Pale Ale made with Genie Pale. Support craft breweries and craft malt!

4. Plan carefully for re-entry to the (real) world: with so much good beer on tap, it’s easy to get carried away. Make sure you have a Designated Rocketship Driver for the ride home, or call for a re-entry ride. We’ve heard that Elon Musk and Uber might be partnering to offer SpaceX-Uber services, soon. Spuber!

5. Stock up on rocket fuel before you go. With individual cans, crowlers, and 4-packs, there’s no reason you should ever run out of gas.

We’ll see you off on your journey and wave from the top of our malthouse grain bins as you go! Bon voyage, beer lovers! 

You won’t regret the trip.

Running On Mother Nature's Time

Seeding barley

The best-laid plans…

Quick! Pop quiz!

How many of you can actually finish that saying? 10 kernels of our heritage Abenaki corn to anyone who can answer without Googling it. Got it?

“The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”

Mice? Planning mice? What kind of nut came up with that one?

Robert Burns, Scottish poet from the 18th century. It’s from his poem, To a Mouse and the actual line reads, The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘ men/ Gang aft agley

We were going to title this blog post Gang Aft Agley just for fun, but we were worried folks might think we’d been hitting some of that (delicious) Talnua whiskey a little too hard, so we went with something a little more understandable. Can’t speak for Poet Burns though. Maybe he just wrote funny because he lived in the 1700s. Or because he was Scottish. Or because he was a Scottish poet living the 1700s and hitting that Scottish Ale a little too hard. If he was talking to mice about planning, the latter seems a distinct possibility.

Regardless, the possibly-tipsy original version has been paraphrased and shortened to the more modern, yet cryptic “The best-laid plans…” that we know today, and while we have absolutely no idea how things are going for the mice in our fields, we can state with great confidence that our best-laid plans this season have most definitely gone awry. (Or have ganged aft agley??)

It is often said that farming is a lesson in patience, but sometimes it feels like a lesson in chaos. Or flexibility. Or creativity. Or, on some days quite simply a lesson in Not-Panicking.

We have software that lays out what we’ll plant in each field and calculates exact acreage. We have schedules for tractor maintenance and schedules for our farmhands. We put seed orders in months in advance and we plan our crop rotations years in advance. We can plot, plan, scheme, and schedule all we want.

But, as every farmer knows, we cannot control the weather.

The Front Range has not gotten an epic amount of snow this season by any means. We had a terribly dry fall followed by a few decent-though-not-impressive snows this winter and, most recently, several light snows in March.

With farming and moisture, however, it’s not just about quantity. It’s also timing.

Weather permitting, March 1st is when we start planting barley and we keep right on planting until it’s all in, ideally before the end of the month.

March

This year, the weather was definitely not permitting.

The March snows, though hardly blizzards, have meant that the ground has been too wet to plant (working wet soil is one of the biggest no-nos of growing as it can lead to compaction and other problems when it dries) and our planting schedule was kicked back by a week, then two weeks, then nearly a month.

Finally, however, we’ve gotten some good runs of decent weather, and we’re hoping to get back on track. We’ve changed plans before (by which we mean every single year) and we’ll certainly have to do it again. Corn is going in next, and it can be even more finicky than barley. It needs to be planted in the spring in order to have time to grow to maturity, but it also hates cold soil. It can tolerate some coolness, but really, it’s happiest in baking hot weather, gettin’ its sunbathing on with a sexy pair of shades and a margarita in hand.

Corn is kind of a diva.

We are definitely nowhere near sunbathing-and-margarita weather, but we’ll see how the rest of this month goes. (Rain? Snow? A two-foot blizzard? 90-degree days?) Regardless, we’ll just have to roll with it. There’s no choice when dealing with Mother Nature.

It’s a good reminder for life. We can plan and plot and believe we’re in control. But we’re not. None of us., We adjust to what comes and keep on, keepin’ on.

Even Robert Burns knew that. Turns out his whole To a Mouse poem is actually about a farmer apologizing to a mouse whose house he has destroyed when plowing his field and the impact that might have on her.

That’s kind of sweet.

Maybe Burns hadn’t imbibed as much ale as we thought.

Photo courtesy of Loveland Aleworks

So while we’re waiting for our fields to dry, maybe we’ll grab a McAllister’s Scottish Ale from Loveland Aleworks (Root Shoot malt, of course) and take a stroll through our fields to warn the mice that the tractors will be coming soon. Only seems fair to give them a little advance notice.

In the meantime, as you’re going through your daily lives and things don’t go according to plan, remember us scrambling in the fields to finish our barley planting late, and start our corn planting even later. It’s not how we planned it, it will probably be a little frantic, but farmers have been farming for thousands of years - through drought, floods, late snows, and early frosts and we’re still here, figuring it out.

You will, too.

Happy Spring.

—Olander Farms

"Take No Sh*t and Trust Your Gut" - Root Shoot's Women in Brewing

When Sandra Day O’Connor asks you to brew her an IPA, you brew the woman an IPA.

“That was our first, holy sh*t moment,” says Betsy Lay, co-founder of Lady Justice Brewing in Aurora, Colorado. “We got an email in 2015 from the son of the first woman Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor. He reached out to let us know that Justice O'Connor had heard about us (before we even opened!) and asked if we could brew her an IPA.”

Hell, yes, they could. A well-suited request for the female-owned, justice-themed establishment. The Sandra Day IPA now sells out of their taproom and to states all over the country via their beer shipping page. 

Lady Justice forms part of a minority of breweries that are female-owned. According to new statistics released by the Brewers Association at the Craft Brewers Conference in September of 2021, female-owned breweries make up 23.7% of all craft breweries. That’s not even a quarter of breweries in a country where women make up over half of the population.  

March 8th is International Women’s Day, and we wanted to take a minute to recognize some of the badass brewers and brewery owners in our Root Shoot community who also just happen to be female. And since we started with Lady Justice, let’s continue with Lady Justice. Please meet…

Photo courtesy of Lady Justice Brewing

Betsy Lay, Lady Justice Brewing

Role: Head Brewer, Co-Founder

Lady Justice is not your typical brewery.

When they say “community-focused” they don’t mean just taproom events and a welcoming atmosphere, though they have those in spades. 

They mean that they’ve donated over $20,000 to community causes and that giving is a core part of their business plan. 100% of the profits from their Community-Supported Beer (CSB) program go directly to their partner non-profits.

That’s not a shabby outcome for a brewery that Betsy describes as originating as “a tipsy idea with my two best friends.” Betsy and her best-friends-turned-business-partners, Kate Power and Jen Cuesta, began Lady Justice in 2014. Betsy took the reins as head brewer from 2016-2019, and again took on the role in January of 2021. We sat down with her (okay, no, we didn’t, we communicated virtually with her, but same-same) to pick her brain about being a Lady Brewer at Lady Justice.

ROOT SHOOT: (Settling in and trying not to be socially awkward at interviewing.) Tell us, Betsy, what’s your brewery superpower? What do you, personally, absolutely rock at in the craft beer world?

BL: I have two specialties: 1) Bringing social enterprise, philanthropy, and beer together and 2) I brew the best dang ESB you will ever have.

ROOT SHOOT: (Frantically scribbling note-to-self. “Try the ESB. Step up community game to be as Badass as Betsy. Send complimentary note to Sandra on her IPA.”) And what do you love about your brewery? What are you proud of there?

BL: Our community and our neighborhood. We have the best staff and the best customers. Our crowd cares deeply for others and loves to give back to its community.

ROOT SHOOT: (Pumps fist and raises roof, even though roof-raising dates us terribly.) Hell, yeah! You go! Lady J! Lady J! Lady J!  (Tries to settle down.) Do you have any words of wisdom for women new to the craft beer world?

BL: Take no shit and trust your gut.

ROOT SHOOT: Preach it, sister.

Trusting one’s gut sounds good in theory, but in the day-to-day of life, it can be absolutely terrifying. Starting a business is a leap of faith. Running a successful business is loads of work. Starting a business during a pandemic and then keeping it successfully running over the ensuring two years of insanity is…well, exactly what our next brewery owner did, following her own gut instincts. Meet…

Photo courtesy of Wah Gwaan Brewing Co

Harsha Maragh, Wah Gwaan Brewing Company

Role: Co-Owner, Co-Founder

Wah Gwaan Brewing Company in Denver is a happy place. Caribbean-themed, (Wah Gwaan means What’s up? in Jamaican Patois) the beers have hints of ingredients that feel scandalously exotic like hibiscus, jackfruit, and pomegranate. The entire building is decked out with Jamaican and Caribbean-themed art, the company is excellent, and the crowd is diverse.

“I am proud of how we have created a space that feels comfortable, inclusive, and welcoming to anyone that walks through our doors. It's beautiful to see the diversity we have in our taproom on any given day,” says Harsha Maragh, co-owner and co-founder along with her business and life partner, Jesse Brown.

A first-generation Jamaican-American, Harsha grew up in New York City, as the daughter of Jamaican immigrants. Upon moving to the Front Range, she found it hard to connect with other Jamaicans. She wanted a space where Caribbean immigrants and other first-generation Caribbean-Americans could get a taste of home. So, naturally…she opened a brewery. 

Now, that’s dedication. 

We’re not Jamaican or Caribbean, but we’re abso-freaking-lutely delighted to work with a brewery with a different vibe. You may have noticed that the Colorado beer scene has a lot of beards and flannel. We fully support flannel. (I mean, have you seen our own Todd Olander, lately?) but Wah Gwaan’s spirit and spice are a welcome breath of fresh, Caribbean air. Speaking of fresh air, you’d never guess Harsh’s background.

ROOT SHOOT: Tell us a little about your time and experience in the craft brewing world. What got you where you are today?

HM: I co-founded Wah Gwaan with Jesse, back in 2020. Prior to officially starting the brewery, we were homebrewers and avid beer lovers and learners for years. Like many others in Colorado, one of our favorite hobbies was to explore different breweries and sample any and all styles.

My background is in meteorology and sustainability planning and management. Although it doesn't seem like those fields relate to brewing, I am constantly using skills that I have developed in previous roles as a brewery owner. 

ROOT SHOOT: (Silently high-fiving ourselves for working in a breath of fresh air pun. Accidentally.) What’s one memorable brewing or brewery moment that comes to mind?

HM: Our opening weekend (June 19-20, 2021) will forever be one of my favorite memories. After countless days of planning, many late nights, and lots of hard work, it was indescribable to see Wah Gwaan come together and customers enjoying beer that we made. The support, love, and kind words that we received that weekend still make me emotional to this day.

ROOT SHOOT: (Dabbing eyes, and updating note-to-self. “Be as Badass as Betsy and as Heartfelt as Harsha.”) Do you have any words of wisdom for women new to the craft beer world?

HM: Be bold! Don't be afraid to be you and put yourself out there. You never know what you are truly capable of until you put your all into something.

ROOT SHOOT: Preach it, sister.

And so, we figured, it would be perfect to wrap up with a real-life example of what putting your all into something look like. Bring on…

Photo courtesy of Stodgy Brewing Company

Natalie Yoder, Stodgy Brewing Company

Role: Co-Owner, Co-Founder

Natalie does it all. 

Well, almost all. We’ll get to what she doesn’t do in a minute. But first…

Run farms? Natalie does it. Teach horticulture classes? Natalie does it. Operate heavy machinery? Also Natalie. Analyze supply chains to identify weak links and fix them before they’re an issue? Natalie. Run a hopping brewery in a spectacular location in Northwest Ft. Collins? Natalie-freaking-Yoder. 

Like Wah Gwaan, Stodgy Brewing made the stunningly bold decision to open during the first wave of the 2020 pandemic. Like Wah Gwaan, they’ve also beat the odds. Judging by the patio crowds and constant stream of customers through the taproom, they’ve managed to thrive despite all the COVID-inducted chaos of the last two years.

Part of the charm of Stodgy is due to their space. Previously a commercial building that sold fireplaces, Stody’s taproom has a log-cabin feel to it. One of our favorite Google reviews refers to it as “An incredible new brewery in Fort Collins, that has you feeling like you're a part of Davy Crockett’s world!” 

Accurate. And the log-cabin charm is bolstered by a beautifully planted outdoor patio space. It’s like no other patio we’ve ever seen. There’s Natalie’s advanced horticulture degree to thank for that. Previous to opening Stodgy with her partner, Tyler Olpin, Natalie worked for CSU in their specialty crops division. One of her primary focuses? Hops and hop farms. 

ROOT SHOOT: (Giggles self-consciously) A farming background and a soft spot for the beer industry? We might have a crush.) How long have you been into brewing? What got you where you are today?

NY: Before [CSU] I was a homebrewer,  I brewed my first batch of beer in 2009, Unicorn Sparkle Butt.  It was terrible. I kept brewing for a few years, created a few drinkable items, but moved away from homebrewing when I met Tyler, a homebrewer with a better knack for making tasty things.  I'm a big picture person. Meeting someone with a mind focused on details like Tyler was key to our success as a brewery.  Big picture and small details make for a great whole picture.  We couldn't have made it this far without the work ethics I learned from agriculture (or the power tool skills) and we wouldn't be the same without my tie to the land. I know where our beer comes from and how it came to be.  I know farming, I know soil, I know hops processing. I build things and I fix things, that's my superpower.

ROOT SHOOT: Unicorn Sparkle Butt?? This must come back. This has to come back. Please tell us that Stodgy will do a Unicorn Sparkle Butt Beer. (Breathes deep and focuses) What do you love about your brewery? What are you most proud of there? 

NY: I’m proud that we serve beer that is 100% local malts and that our beer is excellent.  Supporting your local agriculture economy does NOT mean you have to sacrifice quality and I think we're doing a great job of demonstrating that.  I'm also proud that most of our beers are 100% local hops too.  We chose to support regional ingredients as a principle when we first opened and we're sticking to it.

ROOT SHOOT: PREACH IT, SISTER! Ahem…we mean, good work! Do you have any words of wisdom for women new to the craft beer world?

NY: People get excited about the [female] brewers that start a brewery, but if you're the backbone of the business and a woman - I see you. Your work is really hard and not as glorified and you still think about your business at all hours of the day. Female brewers are awesome and exciting and I also want them to thrive and grow, but there are women in all parts of this business and I want to make sure they're all seen and heard. I was self-conscious about not being a brewer and owning a brewery. Was I advancing women if I wasn't a brewer? It was something I had to get over because big things can't be done alone.

Big things can’t be done alone. 

Not in brewing, not in malting. 

Not in farming, not in business. 

Not in life. 

Small business ownership is hard. it’s even harder as a minority. On this International Women’s Day, we hope you’ll take a minute, seek out a female-owned brewery and buy yourself a beer. Or buy them a beer. Buy everybody a beer and let’s work together to move this industry, and the women in it, ahead. 

Be bold. Don’t go it alone.

And whatever you do, take no shit and trust your gut.

You’ve got this ladies. We’re so proud to work with you.

Cheers,

— Your Admiring Root Shoot Team

Brewery of the Month: Station 26 Brewing Company

Both as a business and in our personal lives, we try to be good people doing good things. 

As we’ve grown, both as a business and as people, we’ve also noticed that being around other good people often helps us do even better things. 

Which is why this month, we have to give a big shout out to Station 26, a brewery whose influence on the malthouse can’t really be understated. They’re a brewery that has actually led us to learn more, do more, and make some really amazing malt.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Hang on for a minute, while we pour a pint, settle into our armchairs, and tell a little brewery story.

Station 26 is a rockin’ craft brewery in the Park Hill neighborhood of Denver. Built in what was once the Station 26 firehouse for the Denver Fire Department, Station 26 (the brewery, not the firehouse) boasts a gorgeous brick building with a huge patio, and a seemingly endless supply of beer. They’ve maintained the old fire lockers and fire poles (no, you can’t slide down them anymore) and the firehoses from the building are the backdrop of the tapwall. 

It’s pretty amazing. And the old Station 26 firefighters aren’t even mad at losing their space. They got a new Station 26 in Stapleton. In fact, the patches adorning the Station 26 brewery are all from firefighters, police officers, and first responders who have had drinks in the taproom---an homage to what Station 26 was in the past, and what they currently are today. It’s an arrangement that worked out well for everyone: beer for the locals, new digs for the firefighters, and an inspiring craft malt relationship for us. 

We met Station 26 six years ago. We were a brand-new malthouse looking to establish our reputation. They were an established brewery looking for a local malt purveyor. Specifically, they were looking for a custom malt for Juicy Banger, their popular IPA. (What? You’ve heard of it? Right. Because it’s AH-mazing!) 

They wanted a light-colored base malt that didn’t have any “grassy” flavors. 

We wanted to make them something awesome. 

But awesome doesn’t come easy. 

We spent six months trialing malts, tweaking the recipes, brewing them into beer, tweaking them some more, adjusting again, until finally, we hit it on the nose. The end result? Our Genie Pale, a two-time winner in the Craft Malt Cup, and one of our most popular base malts across the board with our customers. 

This is what we mean by good people working with good people to end up with great things. Station 26 believes that beer, their beer at least, should take most of its ingredients from within Colorado’s state borders. By their own account, even though using local farms and ingredients can be more costly, it provides for a more personal experience with the beer. “One that feels like home.”

We couldn’t agree more.

They have a personal malting partner up the road, we have a killer beer producer down the road. We work hard to personalize their grain, they work hard to bring malt, specifically local malt, back to the front and center of the beer world. This is what the craft world should be: local businesses helping local businesses become bigger, better, badder versions of themselves…and producing some darn tasty beverages for the community in the process.

Speaking of Community, there’s a lot going on at Station 26. There’s no way we can cover it all here, so check them out on Insta, FB, or Twitter, for all the details, but here are our absolute favorite things about Station 26 that we just have to mention.

The Beer! 

Oh, the beer. SO MUCH good beer. With both their hoppin’ taproom (pun definitely intended) and a significant distributing operation, Station 26 produces an impressive amount of beer. The best part (at least for us NoCo folks who don’t live right around the corner) is that you can snag Station 26 at locations all over the Front Range. The Can Finder app will show you exactly where you can get it, and social media keeps you up on all their releases. Their most recent release, Toward the Fray, is a collaboration with…no, not another local brewery, but with The Infamous Stringdusters, a Grammy Winning jamgrass band. 

How unbelievably cool is that? Cool, but not surprising as Station 26 loves music. Specifically, bluegrass music, which brings us to our other favorite things about Station 26:

Bluegrass Brunch (and All the Other Events)

Every second Sunday of the month, Station 26 hosts a Bluegrass Brunch with live bluegrass music, food, and (of course) beer.  There might be no better way to win the weekend than with flying fiddles, a twangy banjo, and a Tangerine Cream Ale. 

But it’s not all just Bluegrass. Station 26 has a constant stream of events going on at the taproom, from food pairings, to trivia nights, to a vinyl club. Check out all the good times here. 

Then give us a ring so we can join you!

As we dive into this month of March which, just for kicks, we’ve deemed “Malt Madness” (we’re totally into malt more than basketball) we’re waxing nostalgic about the beginnings of our malting adventure and feeling admittedly a little proud of how far we’ve come.

Honestly, we have Station 26 to thank for a big part of that. Without them, Genie Pale wouldn’t be Genie Pale and…who can imagine a Root Shoot without that flagship malt?

Today, Station 26, we raise our Emotional Support Beer to you (really, that’s what it’s called, a 5.5% ABV Brown Ale) for all the support, emotional and otherwise, that you’ve given us over the years.

Cheers!

—Root Shoot Malting

We Did It Again!

This past month, on February 19th the Craft Maltsters Guild hosted the 4th annual Craft Malt Cup. 

Originally, this year’s Malt Cup was scheduled for Maine. We were super excited about joining because we wanted to see what winter is like in a place with actual humidity. We’ve heard it’s cold! We even bought new wool long johns for the trip and researched, “How to look like you belong in Maine.” According to Google, we had a good start by being from Colorado. We own plenty of flannel. We just had to buy some flap-eared hats and LL Bean boots to go with it. But then…you know…COVID. So the Maine trip was canceled, we set aside the long johns for the inevitable spring snowstorm that will hit us (probably in May, just to make life difficult) and instead, put on our best Colorado flannels, jumped in our Subarus, and headed over to Stodgy Brewing to watch the competition virtually with a few of our customers, brewers, and friends.

The Guild’s Craft Malt Cup is a malt competition geared toward small, craft operations like ours. It allows entrants to compete against one another on a level playing field and is helping the entire industry build credibility around the quality of craft malt as we work to expand its role in brewing. 

It’s also just fun. We get to put up our best malts for evaluation, then sit back, nervously await the results, and learn about what other malthouses in the country (and the rest of the world!) are doing. This year, the winning entries came from a huge geographical spread, ranging from California to New Jersey, and Colorado (ahem…) to Australia. Australia! Now that’s cool. When the Craft Malt Conference is held in Australia, we’ll definitely go. Not sure if they wear flannel there but we can buy some dungarees, or whatever!

And so, this year, nestled in at Stodgy Brewing, Imperial Stouts and IPAs in hand, we found out that we earned our 4th Craft Malt Cup medal. Our English Pale Ale took a bronze! Our previous wins include a gold medal for Genie Pale in 2019, a bronze for Munich 10 in 2020, and a bronze for Genie Pale in 2021. Now, that’s worth a toast!

This year’s win makes us the only malthouse nationally or internationally to medal in every year that the competition has taken place. We’re proud of that fact. Ultimately, however, we are even more proud of the craft malt industry as a whole. Thanks in part to the Craft Maltsers Guild as well as a lot of hard-working farmers, maltsters, and supportive craft breweries and distilleries, we’re seeing a steady increase in the influence of local malthouses and the grain-to-glass movement. 

Grain to glass, field to firken, barley to beer - whatever you want to call it, we’re determined, as always, to use our malthouse to continue saving farms, one beer at a time. We’re excited to see so many malthouses doing the same. In fact, while you’re at it, check out this list of all the Malt Cup winners.

Finally, (oh, don’t you think we forgot it) recognition of this win wouldn’t be complete without a huge shout-out to Mike Myers, our Malthouse Manager, lead Shenanigan Starter, and overall Master of Awesomeness. Mike has been our head maltster for the last four years and is responsible for more than 350 of our nearly 400 malt batches produced since we opened, as well as 98% of all malthouse shenanigans. It’s a tough job, but this guy is killing it.

So, for this month of “Malt Madness” we hope you’ll join us in thanking our team. From maltsters to drivers, farmers to packers, they work incredibly hard to keep this business running smoothly and successfully.

Pour a glass, raise a toast, and while you’re sipping, you can watch our acceptance video below. As you’ll see, Todd wore his very best flannel for the occasion. We’re not really sure about the long johns, though. There are things you just don’t ask your boss.

Thank you for following us all these years! 

Cheers,

—Your Root Shoot Team